The present invention relates to an apparatus for use in manufacturing wirebound boxes, and more particularly to an apparatus for manipulating a wire secured to a wire-bound container blank to cut, bend and clinch the end of the wire into the face material of the container blank for forming a flat "plateau" crate.
Wirebound container, box, or crate blanks used to form completed wirebound containers, are customarily formed in stapling machines of the general type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,482,370 in which assembly face material or mats and reinforcing cleats are conveyed by continuously moving conveyor bands beneath stapling machine heads which drive staples astride longitudinally extending binding wires, through the face material or mats, and into the cleats to form a continuous succession of wirebound blanks each comprising several side sections foldably secured together by the binding wires. Presently, when forming box-type crates, this continuous succession of blanks is then typically fed into an RF Loop Forming machine of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,970,118 wherein the binding wires are severed in the interval between adjacent blanks (the "tie wire gap") and bent to form loops whose free ends are then bent to form prongs which are driven into the face material of the mats. When the blank is folded to set up the container, the two loop fasteners at opposite ends of each of the binding wires come into position at the closing corner of the container and one of these loops, being somewhat narrower than the other, is inserted through the latter and bent down against the outer surface of the box to secure the container closed.
The RF Looping Machine, previously mentioned, has been adapted for use in the fabrication of fruit containers commonly called "flat plateau crates" similar to fruit shipping containers widely used in the European market. This crate is basically an open-sided "flat" container secured by girth binding wires wherein the ends of the wire are bent over the top edge of the sides for increased container load strength and personnel security whereas the previously mentioned containers are four-sided, the fourth side being the top.
In fabricating the "flat plateau crate", container blanks are processed as described above on the modified RF equipment to yield a 3-sided flat container blank having loops formed in each of the ends of the girth binding wires. Since these loops are extraneous in the plateau crate they must be manually bent over the side edges of the mats or alternatively they may be cut away using wire cutters. Once the ends have been either cutoff or bent around the side edges of the mats, the flat container blank can be assembled manually by stapling the end sections on or, alternatively, they can be inserted into a semiautomatic plateau assembly machine (SPAM) which attaches the end pieces and results in the finished five-sided plateau crate (i.e. 2 ends, 2 sides and 1 bottom).
Several problems have been encountered in this fabrication process. First, the operation of cutting off or bending over the extraneous looped ends must be done manually. This manual manipulation is both time consuming and potentially hazardous to employees involved in cutting and bending the wires. Also, where the wires are cut off, there is the danger that a subsequent worker may also be injured by the cut ends of the wire as he is handling the container. Further, since the loop formed in the end of the wires is unnecessary for the "plateau"-type box, the excess wire used in forming the loop is totally wasted. When multiplied over several thousand boxes this wasted wire presents a considerable expense. An additional problem which arises is that although the RF Looping Machine works acceptably, it is large, complex and relatively expensive. The complexity tends to result in excessive part breakage and down time making the machine somewhat less attractive in a highly competitive international market.